Bitter Gourd Chips (Baked)

Tags

Baked Bitter Gourd Chips, Baked Chips, Baked Healthy chips, Bitter gourd, Bitter Gourd Chips, Healthy Chips, Pagarkai Chips

I finally nailed on this recipe with baking. Usually these chips are deep fried in oil at my home. My grandpa used to get 3 kgs of bitter gourds when the rates are reduced and he used to ask us to fry it 🙂 It takes a lot of time and patience to complete so much of frying. But worth doing it for its taste. Its not bitter but has a lovely taste. My friends used to love this. One of my friend sparked me with the question, you are deep frying it, will it not remove the nutrients? That time I never knew what is baking 🙂 Many of my co bloggers have got baked chips. So I thought of preparing it myself with bitter gourd.

Searched for recipes, I got many in google. The first time, it got burnt, but the taste remained the same as how I used to deep fry it 🙂 This time when I baked it I could get it correctly. Mine is a mix of various recipes that I found. Here we go 🙂

Ingredients:

Bitter Gourd : 2 large

Tamarind juice : 2 tablespoons

Red Chili Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Coriander Powder : 1 teaspoon

Garam Masala : 1/2 teaspoon (optional)

Turmeric Powder : 1/4 teaspoon

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Chickpea flour/ Besan : 1 1/2 tablespoon

Sesame Oil : 1 tablespoon

Method:

• Cut the bitter gourd to round pieces.
• Mix all other ingredients in a bowl add the bitter gourd, marinate it for 15 mins.
• Preheat oven to 425 F, grease a baking sheet with sesame oil.
• After 15 mins, arrange the bitter gourds in the sheet one by one. Don’t overlap.
• Bake for 15 mins. Then remove baking sheet and flip sides for even baking.
• Again bake for 15 mins. If still not done bake for 5 more mins. This time is a little crucial, it might get burnt. So be careful and remove if needed.
• Cool for 10 mins and serve 🙂

Instead of tamarind juice , lemon juice can also be used.

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Mushroom curry

Tags

mushroom, Mushroom Curry, Mushroom Indian Style Curry, Mushroom Masala, Mushroom Yogurt Curry, Mushroom Yogurt Gravy

For the past few days I have been trying out few recipes and nothing has been working out sadly 😛 So I decided to get to the safer zone of my regular Indian cooking. Here is a recipe with mushroom and yogurt. I love both of them separately and this is a combination of both 🙂 this goes well with roti/chapathi as well rice.

Ingredients:

Mushroom : 250 gms

Onion : 1/2 of large

Tomato : 1

Ginger Garlic Paste : 1 teaspoon

Yogurt : 3 tablespoons

Turmeric Powder : 1/4 teaspoon

Red Chili Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Coriander Powder : 1 teaspoon

Garam Masala : 1 teaspoon

Salt : 1/2 teaspoon

Oil : 1 teaspoon

Cumin seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Mustard Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Curry Leaves : Few

Cilantro Leaves : Few

Method:

• Chop mushroom, onion and tomato to pieces.
• Heat oil in a pan, when hot add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds. When they crackle add the curry leaves.
• Add onion, ginger garlic paste and saute till translucent.
• Add turmeric powder and mix well.
• Next add tomato and saute till soft.
• Next add the chopped mushroom, mix and cook for 5 mins.
• When the mushroom oozes water content, add the red chili powder, coriander powder, garam masala and mix.
• Cook for 10 mins. When the mushroom’s are cooked 75%, add yogurt and salt.
• Mix well and cook for 10 more mins.
• When mushroom are cooked well, stop and garnish with cilantro leaves.
• Serve with hot roti 🙂

 

Aloo Saag/ Potato Spinach Curry

Tags

Aloo curry, Aloo Saag, aloo sabzi, easy Indian Curry, Healthy Spinach, Healthy Spinach Curry, Potato, Potato curry, Potato Spinach curry, Saag Curry, spinach leaves

Aloo Saag a very simple and delicious dish. I just love this combination. We usually skip potato in the grocery list, but this time I had got few of them. This curry is such a comfort dish that I can have it with rice as well as roti 😛 Instead of adding the chopped spinach leaves, I add the puree of spinach which gives it more taste. Hope you like it friends 🙂

Ingredients:

Potato : 2 medium(skin peeled and chopped to large pieces)

Spinach : 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped

Onion : 1/2 of one large

Green Chili : 2

Turmeric Powder : 1/4 teaspoon

Garam Masala : 1 teaspoon

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Ginger Garlic paste : 1 teaspoon

Oil: 1 teaspoon

Cumin Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Mustard Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1/2 teaspoon

Asafoetida : 1/4 teaspoon

Method:

• Boil water in a pan, add potatoes and par boil in high for 5 mins. After 5 mins, drain water and keep it aside.
• Make spinach puree with little water in a blender.
• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, urad dal, cumin seeds, asafoetida. When they crackle, add onions, green chili, ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder.
• Let it turn translucent.
• Next add the par boiled potatoes and mix well. When it is 75% done in cooking potato, add the spinach puree, salt, garam masala and mix well.
• Let it boil with the spinach puree. It would get thicker. When the spinach is mixed well with potato , stop and serve with roti or rice 🙂

 

Mushroom, Spinach Quinoa

Tags

Mushroom Quinoa, Mushroom Spinach Quinoa, Quinoa, Quinoa Indian style recipe, Quinoa Recipe, Spinach Quinoa

Saturdays lunch at my home is usually Quinoa pulao. I got bored with the usual vegetable quinoa pulao, wanted to try with some thing different. As always quinoa is something that we can experiment. I still have the huge pack of spinach, using this with Quinoa. I love mushrooms, its been long time since I had used them, so adding it along with this gave a soothing effect 🙂 Quite a simple recipe as well.

Ingredients:

Quinoa : 2 cups cooked

Mushroom : 5 to 6 large pieces chopped

Baby Spinach : 2 cups chopped

Red Onion : half of a large chopped

Olive Oil : 1 teaspoon

Cumin Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Garam Masala : 1 teaspoon

Turmeric Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Ginger Garlic Paste : 1 teaspoon

Salt : 1 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

• Cook the Quinoa. Please go through this wonderful post from Elaine on how to cook Quinoa. This method is too good and is the best way of cooking quinoa. Cook in a large pan and set aside with closed lid.
• In another pan, heat oil. Add the cumin seeds, when they change color, add the onions.
• Now add ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder.  Let it turn translucent.
• Add the mushrooms and saute for 3 to 4 mins. Add salt of 1 teaspoon and saute.
• Next 1 cup of chopped spinach and saute for 3 to 4 mins. Spinach would reduce in quantity.
• Now add this in the cooked quinoa, add remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt to quinoa and mix well.
• Next add the remaining 1 cup of baby spinach to the quinoa, mix well and close with lid.
• Serve it after half an hour 🙂

 

 

 

 

Celery Chutney

Tags

Celery Chutney, Celery Chutney recipe, Celery for breakfast, Celery Indian Style Recipe, Celery recipe, Chutney recipe, Indian Chutney

In my regular Tamil online magazine, there was an article with the recipe of Celery chutney. I got intrigued by the recipe , an Indian version of Celery that looked too good. I made few changes to the original recipe for my taste and it turned out YUM 🙂 Finally I could finish off all the celery stalks staying in the fridge 🙂 I can have this even as a spread in bread 😛 So here it is

Ingredients:

Celery : a big bunch chopped to small pieces

Cilantro leaves : few stalks

Red Onion: 1/4 of a large chopped

Ginger : 1/4 inch piece chopped

Garlic : 1 pods chopped

Green Chili : 1

Lemon Juice : 1 tablespoon or Tamarind : 1 small piece ( I used Tamarind)

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Oil : 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin Seeds : 1/4 teaspoon

Mustard Seeds : 1/4 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1/4 teaspoon

Curry Leave : few

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan. When hot add the mustard seed, urad dal, cumin seeds. When they crackle add the curry leaves.
• Now add the onions ,green chili, garlic and saute till translucent.
• Next add the chopped celery. Saute for 3 to 4 mins. Add the lemon juice or tamarind piece.
• Finally add cilantro leaves, ginger and saute for 2 mins and stop cooking. Let it cool.
• After cooling blend it to a fine paste ( to chutney consistency)
• Serve with Idli/Dosa 🙂

Cherry Cake

Tags

Cherry Cake, Cherry Sryup, Fiesta Friday, Fresh Cherry Cake, home made cherry syrup, how to make cherry syrup, Oats Flour Cake, simple fresh cherry cake

We had got a big pack of cherries, same day we had a friend visiting us he had also got us a big pack of cherry. Now I have two big packs in the fridge 🙂 I have to do something with this, so I decided to make a cake. This time instead of whole wheat flour, I thought of trying with Oats flour.So here it is, bringing it to Fiesta Friday #26 I have already seen a lot of wonderful recipes submitted, mine is a small try. Angie has mesmerized me with her beautiful pie 🙂

Ingredients:

For Cake

Oats Flour : 1 Cup ( I just blended the rolled oats in a food processor for a mins time and oats flour is ready 🙂 )

Egg : 1

Vanilla Extract : 1 teaspoon

Butter : 2 tablespoon

Brown Sugar : 1/4 cup

Fresh Cherries : around 25 ( seeds removed)

Milk : 1/4 cup( I used full cream milk)

Baking Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Salt : 1/2 teaspoon

For Cherry Syrup topping:

Fresh Cherries : around 15 (seeds removed)

Brown Sugar : 2 tablespoon

Cornstarch : 1 tablespoon

Water : 1 tablespoon

Method:

For Cake

For the cake , mix all dry ingredients together.

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease the baking tray of 9 inch round with butter.

In a blender add the eggs, butter, vanilla extract and milk to blend it. It would look a bit curdled, don’t worry about it.

Mix dry and wet ingredients together. Pour it in the greased baking tray. Place the cherries on the top.

Bake it for half and hour or until the tooth pick comes out clean.

Cool it for half an hour.

While it cool down we can prepare the cherry syrup.

Cherry Syrup

Place the cherries in a small pan, add sugar and heat it.

Cherry would start oozing out the water content.

Mean time prepare the corn slurry by mixing water and corn starch.

When both cherry and sugar blends well and is a bit watery, add the corn slurry.

It would start getting thicker. Mash the cherries and keep mixing. When all the cherries are mashed well and it is thick, stop and filter the syrup to remove the skin of cherries.

Now place the cake in a tray and cut it to pieces, pour the syrup and serve 🙂

Yellow Pumpkin Curry/ Parangikai Masiyal

Tags

Fiesta Friday, Indian style yellow pumpkin curry, Parangikai masiyal, Yellow Pumpkin, Yellow Pumpkin Curry

Yellow pumpkin is one more favorite of mine. This is South Indian style dish which is usually prepared with Yam/karunai Kilangu. I tried it with yellow pumpkin and this is a perfect dish for roti/chapathi. Bringing this colorful dish to Fiesta Friday # 26 The recipe is very simple 🙂

Ingredients:

Yellow Pumpkin/ Parangikai : 7 inch piece

Onion : 1/2 of large

Lime Juice or tamarind pulp : 1 tablespoon

Red Chili Powder : 3/4 teaspoon

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Oil : 1 teaspoon

Mustard Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1/2 teaspoon

Curry Leaves : Few

Cilantro Leaves : to garnish

Method:

Chop Yellow pumpkin to small pieces, remove the hard skin.

Boil yellow pumpkin with very minimal water till it becomes soft.

Remove it and mash well. It has more water content in itself, so save the water in a bowl and keep aside.

Next heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds , Urad dal when it splutters throw the curry leaves. Next add the onions and saute till translucent.

Now add the mashed up yellow pumpkin along with the water saved from boiling and mix well.

Add lemon juice or tamarind pulp, red chili powder, salt and mix well.

Cook for 5 mins. Water would get absorbed (few drops can be remaining it can go with the curry)

Now stop and garnish with cilantro leaves.

This is just perfect for roti as side dish 🙂

Eggplant, Plantain gravy/Kathirikai Vazhakkai Puli Kuzhambu

Tags

Chettinad Kathirikai vazhakkai kuzhambu, easy puli kuzhambu, Eggplant plantain gravy, Eggplant recipe, Indian style eggplant dish, Indian style eggplant gravy, Kathirikai Kuzhambu, Kathirikai Vazhakkai Kuzhambu, plantain gravy, puli kuzhambu recipe

This is a very special dish at my home. My grandma prepares it for any pooja that we do at home, even during Pongal. When some one leaves to a pilgrim trip from home( for those who know patha yathrai to Palani) this is a must in my home. And we all love it when my grandma prepares it 🙂 This is a simple kuzhambu, but need a little extra oil and we use only gingely oil for this. Gingely oil is very good for health and has a cooling effect to the body. It gives a great taste to the dish.

Ingredients:

Eggplant/Kathirikai : 3 to 4 small

Plantain/ Vazhakkai : 1 medium

Red Pearl Onion: 10 to 12

Tamarind juice : 1 cup

Kuzhambu milagai thool : 2 tablespoon

or

Red Chili Powder : 1/2 teaspoon and Corriander Powder : 2 teaspoon

Turmeric Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Gingely Oil : 2 1/2 tablespoon

Cilantro Leaves to garnish

To temper:

Fenugreek seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Fennel Seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Asafoetida : 1/8 teaspoon

Curry Leaves : few

Method:

Peal the skin of plantain and cut them in to pieces. Cut the Eggplants as well.

If the red pearl onions are very small, you can use them directly. If big then we can chop them to 2 pieces.

In the tamarind juice mix the kuzhambu milagai thool or (red chili powder and coriander powder), turmeric powder, salt and mix well. Check for the taste and adjust.

Next in a large pan heat oil. Add the items in to temper, when they change color add the onions and saute for 2 mins.

Now add the Eggplant and plantain and saute for 5 mins.

Add the tamaring juice where spice powders are added and let the gravy get heated. Close lid.

This will take around half an hour, when the oil would start floating in the top layer.

Now stop and garnish with cilantro leaves.

Serve with hot rice.

 

Multi grain Spinach Crackers

Tags

flax seed cracker, Flax seeds, Healthy Crackers, multigrain chapathi, Multigrain Crackers, Multigrain roti, Multigrain Spinach Cracker, Ragi flour, sesame seeds cracker, Sorghum Flour, Spinach Cracker, tea time crackers

Last time when I prepared the wheat crackers, my hubby liked it so much. He prefers salted snacks rather than the sweet one’s. So I thought of making it again. This time in my Indian grocery shopping , I had purchased Ragi flour, Corn flour, Soya flour 😛 All of them were around 1 $, so I couldn’t resist buying 🙂 So here is the multi grain version, with the twist of spinach. My hubby is crazy of spinach. He got a 2.5 lb baby spinach pack. What can I do with so much of spinach? So I am trying to use it in everything possible 😛

In the recent days , I have got influenced by Chitra , she uses flax seeds in many of her recipes. When I was in India, my grandpa used to tell me that flax seeds are such wonderful seeds for a good health, need to get it and use it. Well, we did search and did not find it in my place. Even in Bangalore I couldn’t find them 😦 Finally he got it in some super market in Chennai, by the time I moved to US 🙂 Here in US I found lots of flax seeds in any market, but still didn’t know how to use it. After seeing Chitra I decided to add it somehow in my recipes, so here is the start 🙂

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Flour : 3/4 cup

Ragi Flour/Millet Flour : 3/4 cup

Sorghum Flour/Jowar Flour : 3/4 Cup

Salt : 3/4 tablespoon

Baking Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin Powder : 1/2 teaspoon

Carom Seeds/ Ajwain/Omum : 1/2 teaspoon

Olive Oil : 5 tablespoons

Flax seeds : 1/4 cup

Sesame Seeds : 1/4 cup ( I used a little less than 1/4 cup)

Spinach pureed : 1 cup

Method:

• Mix all the flour together, with salt, cumin powder, carom seeds, baking powder.
• Add 1/2 amount of olive oil to the flour and mix.
• Next slowly add the spinach puree and mix the flour. Make it to a nice dough.
• Add the flax seeds and sesame seeds mix well. Pour the remaining oil and form a nice dough.
• Rest the dough for 15 mins and have it covered to avoid drying.
• Mean time preheat oven to 350 F
• Nicely butter the baking sheet and get it ready.
• After 15 mins divide the dough to 3 portions. Roll the partitioned dough with any flour and form a nice round. Make it to a medium size thickness.
• The edges would crack, because of the Sorghum flour, just don’t worry about it. With the hand pinch the edges and continue to roll.
• Cut them in to pieces and arrange them in the baking sheet.
• Bake it for 15 mins. Take out the baking tray and flip sides.
• Bake for another 15 mins. Once done cool it for 10 to 15 mins.

Now the crackers are ready. A healthy snack ready for tea time 🙂

You can make roti’s/ Chapathi with this flour also. I made a chapathi with the remaining flour, added little oil to cook. It turned yummy 🙂

You can also fry them, but I prefer baking.

Any other flour can also be mixed like chickpea flour, corn flour.

If you do not want to use Spinach, you can just use water to mix the dough. If you can use hot water and mix with spatula, the dough would be perfect to roll.

A tablespoon of honey can be added to get a sweet taste along with this.

Pesarattu Dosa/ Moong Bean crepes

Tags

Andhra MLA pesarattu, healthy dosa recipes, how to make pesarattu, Indian Dosa Variety, Moong Bean crepes, Pesarattu, Pesarattu dosa

Pesarattu is a very healthy crepes prepared in south Indian breakfast. This is a very simple recipe at the same time very healthy. Being a south Indian, Idli and Dosa is something that we love. This pesarattu dosa is quite heavy also, so I try to make it during weekends. These are called MLA pesarattu in Andhra served with Rava upma and allam chutney(Ginger Chutney) My room mates mom when ever she visits us, she would prepare this along with the allam chutney. These dosa taste too good when you combine with upma and allam chutney. Eating 2 would make us burp 😛

Some health benefits are

• Moong Beans are very rich in protein.
• They have less saturated fat and cholesterol , clears toxins.
• They help in reducing the LDL cholesterol(bad cholesterol)
• They help in preventing breast cancer.
• It reduces heart problems.

Ingredients:

Whole Moong Bean/ Pasipayaru/Green Gram : 3/4 cup (Soaked overnight)

Raw Rice : 2 table spoon soaked overnight

Garlic : 4 -5 pods

Ginger : 1 inch piece

Green Chili : 2 to 3

Salt : 1 teaspoon

Asafoetida : 1/4 teaspoon

Oil : to drizzle over the crepes

Method:

• As mentioned soak Moong bean and raw rice overnight.
• Next morning drain water and put all the ingredients in a blender/food processor and grind it to a fine paste.
• Have it in the dosa batter consistency, using water.
• Heat griddle and once it is hot enough pour the batter and spread it in a circular motion.
• Drizzle oil over the crepes and leave it to cook for 2 to 3 mins,
• Next turn side and cook for 2 to 3 mins.

Serve hot with any chutney or allam(ginger) chutney

Andhra pesarattu, they put some chopped onions, green chili over the dosa when it is cooked in the griddle. I am a little lazy to chop 😛 so I didn’t add this.